Fifty years ago this week, the United Soccer Association title was decided in a 6-5 thriller. The teams in action were even more remarkable than the scoreline

It happened so suddenly that the Washington Whips goalkeeper Bobby Clark didn’t know what hit him. Los Angeles Wolves midfielder Bobby Thomson drove in a dangerous cross that deflected off a defender’s leg, past Clark and into the goal. And just like that, the first and only United Soccer Association championship game was over. “It was the first time I had ever been involved in a sudden-death finish to a game and the finality was numbing,” Clark says five decades later.

The Wolves celebrated their achievement while the Whips tried to figure out what happened in a wild game that ended 6-5 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Friday is the game’s 50th anniversary.